Simply point your ships in the right direction and watch as they pummel each other with broadsides. Ship-to-ship combat takes place on a zoomed-in screen where you take direct command of your ships in a real-time ding-dong full of cannon balls, musketry and boarding parties. Needless to say, your first sea battle won’t be far off. You might be sent to raze an enemy town, capture a particular vessel or explore such and such a stretch of coastline.

Whatever your chosen path, as your reputation increases, you’ll be offered missions and tasks from governors, traders and other notables. A bit of carousing in local bars should turn up a rumour or two that will help set you on your way. Explore new coastlines on commission, discover lost tribes, locate hidden treasures. Or you could opt for the way of the adventurer. Or what about piracy? Deck your vessel out with cannons and men, hoist the Jolly Roger and set about plundering every enemy vessel you encounter, ransoming the captains and launching attacks on isolated ports. Become a latter-day shipping magnate, setting up and managing convoys and trade routes to secure your success. While the ultimate goal is to become a rich governor of a colony, how you get to those lofty heights is down to you. Here you can buy and sell goods in the docks, equip and repair your ship, hire men, and construct commercial buildings to generate more cash. In each port you can zoom in to see a layout of the town and watch the inhabitants mill around. Many colonies litter the coastlines, and you sail between them trading, carousing, and fighting your way up the ladder. While it’s just a simple isometric perspective, it’s surprisingly evocative, displaying shiploads more imagination than your average tycoon map.

Most of your time is spent poring over a detailed overview map, offering a pleasing rendition of the tropical terrain, complete with bubbling swamps, smoking volcanoes, native settlements and lush jungle corralled by towering mountain ranges. Not to be confused with the strictly piratical Tropico 2, Port Royale spans four periods in the 16th and 17th centuries, each of which features a different balance of colonial power between the four major nations - Spain, England, France and Holland. Though unfortunately omitting the bit about sexual servitude, Port Royale offers the chance for us to relive these buccaneering days as a Caribbean merchant-cum-adventurer-cum-privateer in the latest Tycoon/RTS game to emerge from somewhere east of the Rhine. For others, no sooner had they joined up than they were sold as sex slaves to a pirate who hadn’t seen a woman in five years, fed on weevils and hard tacks, and forced to share a cabin the size of a shoe box with the powder monkey. For some lucky fellow-me-lads, it meant a dusky maiden in every town, beaches of white sand and more rum in the sun than was good for you. Signing up for Caribbean service in the Navy in 1570 was a risky business.

Port royale 2 player towns